But he does have one ritual: setting up mise en
place, or everything in its place.

It's helpful for chefs — and office workers.

"Mise en place is the religion of all good line cooks,"
he writes in "Kitchen
Confidential," his best-selling memoir.

"As a cook, your station, and its condition, its
state of readiness, is an extension of your nervous system," he
continues. "The universe is in order when your station is set up
the way you like it: you know where to find everything with your
eyes closed, everything you need during the course of the shift
is at the ready at arm's reach, your defenses are
deployed."

What chefs call the "meez" — which Bourdain describes as
"carefully arranged supplies of sea salt, rough-cracked paper,
softened butter, cooking oil, wine, back-ups, and so on" — is
what allows the cook to dance through each dish without pausing
to find the pepper.

Without a
well-tended meez, Bourdain warns, you'll soon find yourself
spinning in place and calling for backup.

The same goes for office workers.

At HBR, consultant and author Ron Friedman
argues that we should take a page from Bourdain's cookbook, a
chef who understood that planning is the most essential
ingredient to any dish.

We should start our days with 10 minutes of tending to the meez,
Friedmansays:

What's the first thing you do when you arrive at your desk? For
many of us, checking email or listening to voice mail is
practically automatic. In many ways, these are among the worst
ways to start a day. Both activities hijack our focus and put us
in a reactive mode, where other people's priorities take center
stage. They are the equivalent of entering a kitchen and looking
for a spill to clean or a pot to scrub.

A better approach is to begin your day with a brief planning
session. An intellectual mise-en-place. Bourdain envisions the
perfect execution before starting his dish. Here's the corollary
for the enterprising business professional. Ask yourself this
question the moment you sit at your desk: The day is
over and I am leaving the office with a tremendous sense of
accomplishment. What have I achieved?